About

Shitty Charmander, alternatively Shitmander or Shartmander, is the online nickname given to a poorly inked tattoo of the Pokemon character Charmander that went viral after a photograph of the finished work was submitted to Reddit in April 2015.

Origin

On April 14th, 2015, Redditor Yllwsnow2 uploaded an image of a black-faced lizard-like creature tattooed on his friend with the caption “My friend was drunk and on Xanax when he decided to tattoo a black face Charmander with no experience or artistic ability. The flame saves it” (shown below). Within first 48 hours, the original image on Imgur garnered more than 2.4 million views, while the Reddit post reached the front page and garnered than 5,108 points and 1,200 comments.

Spread

In the comments section, Redditor gotNoodles pointed out the similarity between the tattoo and a Tim Burtonian fan illustration of the Pokemon character drawn by Tumblr artist Hatboy (shown below, far left).

On April 15th, Imgur highlighted the overnight trend with a selection of notable fan artworks on its official blog in a post titled “That Escalated Quickly”. On April 16th, a standalone subreddit devoted to the fan art meme was created on Reddit at /r/shartmander, as well a Twitter account with the identical handle @Charmander. Later that day, Redditor Yllwsnow2 followed up on his original post with another photograph revealing the face of the friend with a timestamped message addressed to /r/funny.

Notable Examples

Fan Art

Merchandises

Search Interest

External References

About

Mystery Skulls is the stage name of American indie pop / electronica musician Luis Dubuc, who is most known by his song Ghost. Originally Ghost was released on May 8th of 2012 and an official live action video was released on February 6th of 2014. However, Dubuc’s songs gained much of its online traction following the release of an animated version of the music video in October 2014, by Flash animator Mystery Ben.^[11] This series of animated music videos eventually became known as Mystery Skulls Animated.

History

Dubuc’s “Ghost” was initially released as a preview on the Mystery Skulls Tumblr on May 8th, 2012.^[9] The song was later remastered and released as a single via iTunes on January 31st, 2014, followed by the YouTube debut of the live action music video on February 4th (shown below, right). However, the song didn’t receive much attention until an animated version of the music video, commissioned by Dubuc onto YouTube animator Ben Mangum (a.k.a MysteryBen27), was released on October 26th (shown below, left). Within a week, the animated rendition of the music video^[3] drew more than 750,000 views and over 25,000 up votes.

Prior to their collaboration on the music video for “Ghost,” Mystery Ben, who first rose to YouTube fame through his 2011 fan music video tributes to My Little Pony, had produced a fan music video for Mystery Skull’s “Money,”^[1] which featured various animated characters from the Phoenix Wright Attorney video games (shown below). Upon its debut in May 2012, Mangum’s music video tribute to “Money” quickly became a hit, garnering nearly 1.6 million views in the following three years. Having taken note of the music video’s success, Mystery Skulls then contacted Ben Mangum to commission an official animated music video for his single Ghost.^[2]

Sequel

On April 15, 2016, roughly two years after the release of Mystery Skulls Animated – Ghost, Mystery Ben uploaded the second installment to the series, to the song of Mystery Skull’s Freaking Out. The video gained approximately 300k views in just the first two days the video has been uploaded.

Impact

On October 27th, Redditor GamingAnarchy submitted the animated music video to /r/animation. On October 29th, Kotaku user PrinceofTheUniverse submitted the music video in a post titled “Animation Underground: Mystery Skulls Animated – Ghost.” On October 30th, BuzzBandsLA highlighted the animated music video in a blog post. In addition to the music and animation blog coverage, some of the characters featured in the music video quickly inspired a series of fan art illustrations on DeviantART and Tumblr. On November 5th, the Tumblr music staff announced a Q&A session with artist Mystery Skulls scheduled for the following day to answer questions about the success of the music videos and his music in general.^[10]

A year after the release of Ben’s animated ghost music video, fellow animator yuracon^[12] has borrowed from Ben’s rhythmic approach to yet another Myster Skulls song, Magic. The animatic itself of yuracon’s upcoming music video has accumulated 2.3 million views (shown below).

Fandom

Lewis The Skeleton

Lewis The Skeleton is the name given to the fictional skeleton character in the video that subsequently became popular on DeviantART and Tumblr through fan art, cosplay and plush toys since the video was first posted on YouTube. In addition, people have taken to calling him ‘Bara Skeleton,’ which is a reference to his masculine size and shape. As of October 31st, 2014, DeviantART host hundreds of original sketches and drawings related to Lewis.^[4]

Search Interest

External References

About

“Squidward Fad” refers to a series of videos that feature an image with various filters flipped around the screen with the song “Gentle Breeze” playing in the backgroud.

Origin

The first use of the fad originates from a video uploaded by YouTube user ChristopherCooler sometime in 2008. The video featured an image of the character Squidward from the series Spongebob Squarepants with his mouth open being flipped around the screen while the song “Gentle Breeze” from the game Trauma Center 2 plays in the background. While the original video and account have been deleted, a reupload was posted on January 1st, 2011.

Spread

A video was later uploaded by Kortez3000/SantaWithTeeth combining the fad with the image of Moar Krabs. The video has since been taken down, however a reupload of the video was posted on February 19th, 2009. The reupload has since gained over 250 thousand views in 7 years.

A video of the image of Squidward gradually multiplying was uploaded on April 10th, 2009 by YouTube user PooPTuBeNoob (shown below, left). The video has since gained over 300 thousand views in under 7 years. A video of the fan combined with an image of Handsome Squidward titled “skidward” was uploaded by YouTube user cox on September 21st, 2008 (shown below, right). The video has since gained over 500 thousand views in under 8 years.

Various Examples

External References

Editor’s Note: Please do not use the comments section to debate about WWII and/or the Holocaust.

About

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician who served as the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1934 to 1945. Mainly known for his central involvement in several acts of atrocities against humanity, including Nazism, World War II and the Holocaust, Hitler is often regarded as one of the most universally despicable public figures in the history of mankind. Online, Hitler has been a popular subject of satires and parodies due to the historical notoriety and taboos surrounding his name.

Online History

Since the early days of the Internet, Adolf Hitler has been a regular subject of online discussions and jokes. In 1990, Mike Godwin introduced the “Godwin’s Law”^[1] which he coined as a “natural law of Usenet.” During the first half of the 2000s, Hitler was a subject of several YTMND parodies with the earliest instance submitted in 2006^[2]. Later that same year, the release of the 2004 German war epic film Downfall, which recounts the last ten days of Hitler’s life and eventual suicide in his Berlin underground bunker, gave birth to Hitler Reaction Videos, one of the most well-known Hitler-themed internet memes to date.

Online Presence

Satires of Adolf Hitler exists in many different forms across a wide range of Internet humor sites and communities, most notably on 4chan, Tumblr, Reddit, among others.

Reputation

Given his exceptionally unfavorable reputation and public image, various aspects of Hitler’s personal life have been subject to countless posthumous myths, speculations and rumors, including his medical conditions, religious beliefs, sexual identity and ethnic heritage.

Genital Deformities

On December 18th, 2015, German historian and university professor Peter Fleischmann released a report asserting that Hitler indeed had only one testicle, a decades-old rumor which had been partly inspired by the lyrics of a World War II-era British playground song, based on the analysis of his medical examination records from November 12th, 1923, shortly after Hitler was arrested for his unsuccessful coup attempt in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch. According to the document as logged by the Landsberg prison doctor Josef Steiner Brin, Hitler was deemed to be “healthy and strong” aside from his “right-side cryptorchidism.” On February 22nd, 2016, The Telegraph ran an article titled “Hitler ‘had tiny deformed penis’ as well as just one testicle,” which underscored another claim based on medical records that Hitler had suffered from a rare condition known as hypospadias, which left him with an abnormally small penis, as asserted by German historians Jonathan Mayo and Emma Craigie in their 2015 book Hitler’s Last Day: Minute by Minute. In the following days, the story about “Hitler’s micropenis” was picked up by dozens of news sites and online publications in many different languages.

Related Memes

Godwin’s Law

Godwin’s Law is an internet adage that is derived from one of the earliest bits of Usenet wisdoms, which goes “if you mention Adolf Hitler or Nazis within a discussion thread, you’ve automatically ended whatever discussion you were taking part in.”

“When You Ride Alone, You Ride With Hitler”

When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Hitler is an anti-Nazi propaganda poster created and widely distributed by the United States government during the World War II to encourage carpooling among American citizens to conserve gasoline for the war (shown below, far left). Due to its relevance to the Godwin’s Law, the image has inspired various propaganda parodies online.

Downfall Hitler Rant Parodies

Downfall also known as “Hitler Finds Out…” or “Hitler Reacts To…” is a series of parody-subtitled videos based on a pinnacle scene from Der Untergang (2004), a German WWII drama revisiting the last ten days of Adolf Hitler’s life and eventual suicide in his Berlin underground bunker. Due to the film’s international success and Bruno Ganz’ portrayal of the Nazi dictator, numerous segments from the movie soon fell fodder to parodies on YouTube, spawning hundreds of anachronistically subtitled videos of Hitler getting upset over topical events and trivial gossip.

Hipster Hitler

Hipster Hitler (also known as “Adolf Hipster”) is a series of comics and image macros of a Hipster version of Adolf Hitler. The images typically dress the former German dictator in skinny jeans and hipster glasses with a side-swept hairstyle.

Hitler House

Hitler House is the nickname given to a two-story townhouse in Swansea, Wales that is said to resemble the face of Hitler. The photograph of the house facade was taken by a 22-year-old British youth worker and posted via Twitter, which has been since viewed hundreds of thousands of times.

Kitler

“Kitler” is a nickname used to describe white cats with black markings under their noses that resemble Adolf Hitler’s toothbrush mustache. Cats with these coats were popularized in June 2006 by the single topic site Cats that Look Like Hitler.

Ignore Hitler

Ignore Hitler refers to a series of user-submitted artworks on the mobile gaming app Draw Something that incorporate caricatures of Adolf Hitler regardless of its contextual relevance. The images gained significant attention after its creator launched a single topic blog in April 2012.

“Hitler Did Nothing Wrong”

“Hitler Did Nothing Wrong” is an incendiary statement used for trolling purposes to deny that the acts Adolf Hitler was responsible for during his reign were morally wrong. Over time the phrase become widely used as a snowclone “X did nothing wrong”.

“Literally Hitler”

“Literally Hitler” is a hyperbolic expression that can be used to denounce an individual or group as being worse than Hitler. On the social networking site Reddit, the phrase is also used to mock circle jerk discussions that ultimately manifest into examples of Godwin’s Law.

Kung Fury

Kung Fury is a 2015 martial arts comedy short film about the adventures of a 1980s Miami renegade cop who seeks to revenge his friend’s death by traveling back in time to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany and martial arts master known as “Kung Führer.” Written, directed by, and starring David Sandberg, the film instantly went viral upon its YouTube debut.

Would You Kill Baby Hitler?

Would You Kill Baby Hitler? is a thought experiment which ponders the ethics of traveling back in time to kill Adolf Hitler as an infant in order to prevent the holocaust.

Search Interest

External References

Overview

420, 4:20, or 4/20 (pronounced four-twenty) is a code-term used to call for consumption of cannabis, particularly around the time 4:20 p.m. or on the day of April 20th, and by extension, a way to identify oneself with cannabis culture.

Background

According to Steven Hager, the editor of High Times, and other various sources of cannabis literature, the term “420” was coined in 1971 by a group of students at San Rafael High School in San Rafael, California, who called themselves the “Waldos” and congregated by the campus statue of Louis Pasteur to smoke weed at 4:20 p.m. The group initially referred to the meeting by the code phrase “4:20 Louis” on the school grounds, before they shortened it to simply “4:20.” From there, the code word began spreading around the city of San Rafael, a strong foothold for the fans of the psychedelic rock band Grateful Dead, and gradually, it became adopted by marijuana smokers across the rest of the country.

Etymology

Due to the largely anecdotal nature of the backstory, the coinage of the term has long been misattributed to a number of urban legends and unfounded connections that became widespread as cannabis culture thrived across North America and Europe. Some of the most well-known myths that have been since debunked include:

Notable Developments

As cannabis culture continued to gain traction across North America following a period of renaissance during the 1970s, the term “420” also became widely adopted by cannabis smokers in the 1980s, though mostly “passed along from stoner to stoner as a completely underground grassroots phenomenon,” according to The High Times.

The Grateful Dead Flyer

In December 1990, fans of Grateful Dead circulated a mysterious flyer promoting a smoking event scheduled to take place on April 20th, 1991 in Marin County, California. The flyer also came complete with an alleged backstory for the term “420.”

“We are going to meet at 4:20 on 4/20 for 420-ing in Marin County at the Bolinas Ridge sunset spot on Mt. Tamalpais,”

“420 started somewhere in San Rafael, California in the late ‘70s. It started as the police code for Marijuana Smoking in Progress. After local heads heard of the police call, they started using the expression 420 when referring to herb – Let’s Go 420, dude!"

Although the validity of the backstory has been since disputed by members of The Waldos, the flyer and its variations (shown below) played a vital role in popularizing April 20th as the unofficial holiday of cannabis culture among the fans of Grateful Dead and beyond, as well as the term “420” after The High Times published the Deadheads’ flyer in 1991 and continued to reference the number in its subsequent issues. In 1998, The High Times recognized The Waldos as the “inventors” of 420.

Observances

On April 20th, 1995, the Cannabis Action Network staged the first annual 4/20 Ball at Maritime Hall in San Francisco, California, one of the earliest known instances of organized and recurring events in observance of 420, from 4:20 p.m. to 4:20 a.m. Since then, dozens of similar congregations to celebrate cannabis culture on April 20th have emerged under the coordinated efforts of various cannabis advocacy groups across North America, most notably at the Hippie Hill in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, University of Colorado’s Boulder campus and University of California’s Santa Cruz campus in the United States, as well as Ottawa’s Parliament Hill and Major’s Hill Park, Montreal’s Mount Royal monument and Edmonton’s Alberta Legislature Building in Canada, among many other places in Europe.

2000

On April 20th, 2000, San Francisco Gate published an article titled “Stoner Chic Traces Origin To San Rafael,” which highlights various myths surrounding the origin of “420” and credits The Waldos of San Rafael High School for coining the term, citing The High Times editor Steven Hager’s research on the topic.

2005

On April 20th, 2005, Something Awful forums member Kirtaner registered the domain name 420chan.org, which eventually became the home of 420chan, an English-language imageboard mainly focused on the discussion of cannabis culture and professional wrestling, following a massive exodus of raiders to spin-off imageboards in late-August 2006.

2014

Easter 4/20 was the simultaneous observation of Easter, the Christian holiday on which Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead, and 4/20 on April 20th, 2014.

Impact

• The term 420 can be used to directly refer to marijuana. The term “420 friendly” is also commonly used among those who smoke and even those who do not to refer to people or places that are acceptable and open to the use of marijuana.

• “420 Blaze it” is a catchphrase used in celebration of smoking marijuana. The phrase is often used ironically to mock cannabis enthusiasts who identify themselves with the stoner subculture.

• In 2001, the forReal.org web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Substance Abuse Prevention put out a public service document titled, “It’s 4:20 — Do You Know Where Your Teen Is?”

• On January 1st, 2004, the Governor of California signed California Senate Bill 420 into law, which regulates marijuana used for medical purposes. This bill comes years after the term ‘420’ was associated with marijuana and indeed its number likely was chosen because of the existing pop culture connection.

• The term “420” has been routinely referenced in various popular movies and television shows. In Fast Times at Ridgemont High the final score of the football game is displayed as 42-0. Most of the clocks used as props in Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20.

• With the decriminalization and legalization of marijuana, many hemp-based and cannabis culture products have taken on the term as part of their brand, including Atlanta’s Sweetwater Brewing Co. 420 Pale Ale, 420 Tours (low-cost travel packages to the Netherlands and Jamaica), Highway 420 Radio, as well as video games, record labels and musical acts.

Search Interest

External References

About

The Absolute Madman refers to a Facebook post that shows an image of two boys who told their friend named Dean to lay down on the floor. The image is often mocked by users for being boastful over a simple feat and has since spawn edits and fanart with other known situations from various events, shows and video games.

Origin

Though the origin of the post itself is unknown, The earliest examples of it was posted in Funnyjunk on May 27th, 2014 by user superstephtime as part of his compilation post titled “Cringe Comp”. As of April, 2015, the compilation has gathered more than 58.000 views and 1698 upvotes^[1] . On the very same day, a standalone image which was followed by the Neil deGrasse Tyson Reaction image was posted on Cepcerk^[2].

Spread

On June 1st, 2014, Imgur user TurtleThatCanStrut reposted the image and as of April, 2015, has gathered more than 54.000 views^[3]. On July 3rd, 2014, reddit user hyug_5 posted the image on /r/4chanMeta which as of April, 2015, has gathered 861 points (99% upvoted) and 37 comments^[4]. On October 22nd, 2014, Twitter page Year 9 Banter tweeted the image which as of April, 2015, has gathered more than 2.300 favorites and was retweeted more than 2.700 times^[5].

On May 28th, 2014, Funnyjunk user CrushOrange upload an edited image which shows Dean in the fashion of a Super Smash Bros 4 character announcement as a reply to the Cringe Comp post^[6]. As of April, 2015, the reply has gathered 451 upvotes. On September 19th, 2014, Funnyjunk user teranin posted a drawn image titled “HAHAHA oh wow!” which replaces the three people in the original with veteran figures from Nintendo. As of April, 2015, the post has gathered more than 12.000 views^[7].

Various Examples

Search Interest

Not available.

External References

About

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Cover Parodies is a meme based on Neutral Milk Hotel’s second studio album, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, as well as it’s cover. The cover is parodied, often alluding to other parts of the album, along with references to other albums and memes favored by /mu/, such as Death Grips, and Dubs Guy among others.

Background

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is the second studio album by indie band Neutral Milk Hotel, released in 1998. It was one of the most critically acclaimed and influential albums of the late 90s. The album received high praise from many critics, and in 2008 the album was reissued for its tenth anniversary and received a perfect 10/10 score by music review website Pitchfork Media, an achievement that has only been reached 13 times.

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

About

This Is Snek refers to a phrase used as a caption of a photo of a Indian woman holding a giant snake. The phrase is used as a hashtag or to caption other humorous photos of snakes.

Origin

The exact origin of the photo is unknown, although it began to pop up online on various photo blogs during the winter of 2013-2014.^[1] The caption, an unrelated quote by Indian singer Dharmendra Rada, appeared on the photo during this time as well, and it’s likely that the combination was first created on 4chan, although it hasn’t been archived. The first instance of the photo posted online was on FunnyJunk on January 24th, 2014.^[2]

Precursor

The word “snek” in reference to snake predates the “This Is Snek” image by several years. The word snek has been archived on 4chan almost 10,000 times, and the first instances of the word snek being used to reference a snake date back to at least 2012.^[3] According to Urban Dictionary, snek is often paired with the word “stahp,” as in “Snek Stahp!” in the image below.^[4] In addition, snek is often used as a hashtag on Tumblr, where many use it to tag photos of their own snakes, and Instagram, where there are more than 12,000 posts doing the same.^[5][6]

Spread

The first known reddit post of This is Snek, to the subreddit /r/nottimanderic, was February 10th, 2015 and received 1691 upvotes as of September 2015.^[7] This post, in turn, inspired the subreddit /r/sneks, which has gained over 11,000 readers in the same time span.^[8] The image phrase has been used over 750 times on 4chan, the first of which was May 19th, 2014 on the /s4s/ board.^[9] On November 26th, 2014, the image was posted to reddit again, this time in the /r/indianpeoplefacebook subreddit, where it received 2,888 points (100% upvoted).^[10]

There are thousands of snake-related results at any given time for “This Is Snek” on Tumblr,^[11] and the hashtag #thisissnek produces a variety of results on Instagram and Twitter.^[12][13] There are 24 deviations on DeviantArt.^[14]

Notable Examples

Search Interest

External References

Editor’s note: For more information, visit KYM Forum Thread – Office of Cease & Desist Records.

About

Scumbag Girl, also referred to as “Scumbag Stacy” and “Scumbag Girlfriend”, is an Advice Animal style image macro series featuring a photo of a scantily clad young woman posing in a bedroom. The overlaid text typically consists of unethical, selfish and sadistic behaviors that are meant to represent the female counterpart toScumbag Steve.

Origin

The origin of the photo of the girl comes from a post on the single topic blog HottestGirlsOnCampus, entitled “North Carolina Hat Girl”^[1], posted on the 26th of January 2011. Soon afterwards, the subject of the photograph was identified as a winner of CollegeHumor’s “Hottest College Girl” contest in 2007.^[9]

Spread

Following the post on the HottestGirlsOnCampus, the photo of the hat girl has been used as an avatar in adult dating sites and was posted in various forums. The photo has also being used as an advertisement for the adult dating site Fling^[2].

A Scumbag Girl Quickmeme page was created on April 2011^[3]. The first thread on the r/adviceanimals^[4] subreddit was posted on the 14th of April 2011 titled “Introducing:Scumbag Girlfriend”.

Meme generators for Scumbag Girl can be found on QuickMeme^[5] and DIYLOL^[6].

Derivative: Cool Chick Carol

Similar to the Good Guy Greg series that was created as the polar opposite of Scumbag Steve, Cool Chick Carol is the polar opposite of Scumbag Girl. The photo originates from a post titled “Destination Playstation 2009” on February 26th, 2009 from the Spanish videogaming blog Bitgame^[7]. Derivatives can be found on Quickmeme.^[8]

Search Interest

Search queries for “Scumbag Girl” peaked in April-May 2011, corresponding with the creation of the Quickmeme page.

External References

^[1]HottestGirlsOnCampus – North Carolina Hat Girl

^[2]TinEye – Search results using a Scumbag Girl derivative

^[3]QuickMeme – i hate how men treat women golddigger

^[4]AdviceAnimals Subreddit – Introducing: Scumbag Girlfriend

^[5]Quickmeme – Scumbag Girl

^[6]DIYLOL– Scumbag Girl

^[7]Bitgame – Destination Playstation 2009

^[8]Quickmeme – Cool Chick Carol

^[9]UDReview – Del Student Named America’s Hottest College Girl

About

Tampon Girl is the nickname given to Giovanna Plowman, a teenager who uploaded a video of herself sucking on what appears to be a used feminine hygiene product. Since its upload onto Facebook and YouTube in January 2013, the video has sparked several reaction videos as well as an online debate regarding its authenticity.

Origin

Giovanna Plowman uploaded the original video to her Facebook^[9] page on January 19th, 2013, in which she removes a tampon off camera and proceeds to put it in her mouth while listening to the song “212” by Azealia Banks. The video was re-uploaded to YouTube later that same day by YouTuber FizzyShizzles, but both copies were subsequently removed for violating the sites’ terms of services. Eventually, a mirrored copy was re-uploaded to LiveLeak (shown below).

Spread

On January 20th, 2013, Yahoo Answers^[3] member Chantelle B. submitted a question asking if other members thought the video was faked, which sparked a debate about the video’s authenticity in the comments. The same day, the Examiner^[6] published an article about the Internet’s reaction to the video, reporting that Plowman was being bullied and people were spreading rumors that she had committed suicide. Meanwhile on YouTube, several viewers posted their reactions to Plowman’s video, in similar vein to the response videos associated with Two Girls One Cup and Interior Semiotics.

Also on January 20th, Redditor Madclown55 submitted the LiveLeak video to the /r/cringe^[10] subreddit, where it received over 160 up votes and 160 comments within 24 hours. On January 21st, YouTuber DailyGrace uploaded a fake reaction to the video, in which she acts disgusted while watching a tampon commercial (shown below).

As of January 21st, 2013, the “Giovanna Plowman” Facebook^[7] page has received over 161,000 subscribers and the @ItsGiovannaP Twitter^[8] account has received over 8,100 followers. Posts about the video can be found on the microblogging site Tumblr under the tag “#giovanna plowman.”^[1]. Giovanna appears to show rather no regret for her infamy and actions in her scandalous video, stating “im kinda famous guys”

Notable Examples

Image Macros

Search Interest

External References

About

“What Year Is It” is the caption of an image macro featuring a photo of Robin Williams’ disheveled-looking character from the 1995 film Jumanji. In rage comics, it is often used in similar fashion to the my face when reaction faces to convey the disoriented sense of time experienced when waking up.

Origin

Jumanji is a fantasy-comedy film released on December 15th, 1995, starring Robin Williams playing the role of Alan: a boy who is sucked into a board game only to emerge 26 years later. After being freed from the game, he asks the two children that have freed him “what year is it?”^[1] and is shocked to discover how much time has past. The image used for the caption “What year is it?” was taken from the official Jumanji movie trailer and can be seen at 1:09 in the following video:

The earliest known reaction image macro instance was posted to the r/pics subreddit in a thread titled “How I feel after an afternoon nap”^[2] on September 7th, 2011 by Redditor topshelf89. The thread managed to reach the front page and has accumulated 16,886 up votes as of November 30th, 2011.

Spread

The same reaction image reached the front page of the marijuana enthusiast r/trees subreddit in a thread titled “First words out of my mouth after waking up still a solid 6”^[7] on October 13th, 2011. The first known rage comic using the captioned image titled “Every damn night”^[5] was created by Redditor Arbypwnyou and reached the front page of the f7u12 rage comic subreddit on October 16th, 2011.

On November 11th, 2011, a Skyrim rage comic by Redditor JoshuaTheWarrior reached the front page of the r/gaming subreddit. Rage comics using the reaction image have since spread to FunnyJunk^[4] and Tumblr.^[3] Two Quickmeme^[6][7] pages have been created featuring the image with a total of 32 submissions as of November 30th, 2011.

Notable Examples

External References

About

“REEEEEEE” is an onomatopoeic expression of intense rage or frustration typically associated with the Angry Pepe character and used by those who frequent the /r9k/ board on 4chan. It is meant to represent the unique croak produced by several species of frogs when agitated.

Origin

Certain frog species are known to produce a shrill scream noise to ward of predators when threatened.^[12][13] On October 25th, 2009, the earliest known video of this behavior was uploaded by YouTuber ppparaone, which gained over 2.5 million views and 4,600 comments in the next six years (shown below). This video would later one become even more popular with a screenshot of a comment, and spread to humor content aggregator clickbait websites such as Buzzfeed^[14] or Smosh^[15].

The earliest known archived use of the onomatopoeic version of the scream was submitted to 4chan’s /r9k/^[7] board on December 27th, 2014, featuring an image of Pepe the Frog accompanied by the message “REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” (shown below).

Spread

On January 23rd, 2015, a series of posts with Angry Pepe images featuring the cries of frustration appeared on /r9k/.^[6] On January 31st, a thread was submitted containing a picture of Pepe vomiting along with the expression, to which other users replied with audio clips of themselves making the screaming noise. Over the following weeks, additional posts were submitted featuring the onomatopoeic expression.^[9]

On February 21st, a Redditor submitted the question “Why do people on 4chan’s r9k say ‘REEEEEE’ all of a sudden?” to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[16] subreddit, to which Redditor Dragon___ replied that the sound was similar to shrieks made by autistic people (shown below). On March 19th, Redditor Taaqif submitted another question about “Reeeeeee” comments to /r/OutOfTheLoop.^[17]

Various Examples

“Fucking Normies! REEEEEEE!”

“Fucking Normies! REEEEEEE!” is an expression indicating rage against ‘normies’,, which is associated with the catchphrase “Fucking normies! Get out of my board!” used in audio recordings submitted to /r9k/.^{[2][3][4][5][10]} On February 1st, 2015, YouTuber GoldenSodaXbox uploaded one of the recordings (shown below, left). On February 24th, YouTuber The Dank Memester uploaded a video titled “NORMIESGETOUT,” featuring several of the audio clips (shown below, right).

The audio clip inspired other parodies with various /r9k/ audio clips (shown below).

Search Interest

External References

About

Don’t Look at Them Ricky! is a webcomic featuring a son who undergoes a transformation after witnessing two men kissing while walking with his mother. The comic is often used as an exploitable template to depict other transformations in a similar vein to the “Sweet Jesus, Pooh!” comic series.

Origin

In April 2014, the webcomic Extra Fabulous Comics^[1] posted a comic titled “Probably Not How it Works,” in which a mother warns her son to look away from two men kissing before he is magically transformed into a sweater vest, tie and pair of heart-shaped sunglasses (shown below).

Spread

On April 28th, 2014, Redditor FunkSiren submitted the comic to the /r/Unexpected^[3] subreddit, where it garnered more than 3,500 votes (90% upvoted) and 90 comments prior to being archived. On June 27th, NeoGAF member Peff submitted a Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure-themed version of the comic (shown below, left). On May 3rd, 2015, the original comic was submitted to the /r/ireland^[2] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 2,600 votes (91% upvoted) and 140 comments. On June 29th, Redditor friendzoned_niceguy submitted a version of the comic titled “The birth of a furry” to the /r/CringeAnarchy^[5] subreddit (shown below, right).

On November 4th, Twitter user @studiopixelbeam^[6] tweeted a version of the comic featuring the PC gaming masterrace character (shown below, left). On November 14th, Redditor demonboi uploaded an edited version of the comic mocking DJs who play trap music to /r/trap^[4] (shown below, right).

Various Examples

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About

Ed Balls is a British politician who rose to internet fame after accidentally tweeting his own name in April 2011, leading many users on Twitter to mockingly retweet the message thousands of times. Since then, many British Internet users have been annually celebrating “Ed Balls Day” by spamming his name on Twitter on the anniversary of the original tweet.

Origin

On April 28th, 2011, British Labour Party and Co-operative Party politician Edward Michael Balls accidentally tweeted his own name while trying to search for an article about him on Twitter (shown below). Within two years, the tweet received over 10,800 retweets and 4,300 favorites.

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For the remainder of 2011 and 2012, the tweet remained intact on Balls’ Twitter profile and became mocked by many British users on the site. On February 5th, 2013, Storify^[6] user Moose Allain uploaded a compilation of tweets describing how to pronounce “Ed Balls.” On April 8th, a Facebook^[3] event page was created for the second anniversary of Ed Balls’ tweet, which received over 900 RSVPs in the following week. On April 10th, journalist Andy Kelly tweeted a joke about Ed Balls punning his own name at the funeral for former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Within five days, the tweet gained more than 55 retweets and 40 favorites.

On April 11th, blogger Rebecca Baker published an article about the upcoming two-year anniversary for the tweet.^[8] The following day, Balls retweeted a photograph of a train sign with his name written on it. Also on April 12th, the tech news blog Digital Spy^[2] published a post about Balls’ recognition of the meme.

On April 13th, Urban Dictionary^[4] user mosmi submitted an entry for “Ed Balls,” defining it as a meme inspired by the tweet from April 2011. On April 15th, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[1] featured a compilation of notable examples of the meme and The Mirror^[5] published an article about the upcoming anniversary of the tweet, reporting that many Twitter users planned to retweet Ed Balls’ name on April 28th.

Notable Examples

Leading up to the tweet’s two-year anniversary, many Twitter users posted edited photos and image macros referencing the meme.

Bookmarklet

An Ed Balls bookmarklet^[7] tool allows users to change the text on an entire webpage to the name “Ed Balls” (shown below).

Ed Balls Day

Since the original tweet went viral in April 2011, the incident has been annually celebrated by British Internet users on the day of its anniversary, with many retweeting his original message and others commemorating the occasion through various works of homage on April 28th. In 2015, Balls submitted a framed and signed printout of the infamous tweet to be auctioned off at a fundraising event for the Labour party.

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About

Towel is the pseudonym used by an anonymous hacker who gained minor notoriety for hacking and vandalizing the YouTube and Twitter accounts of several notable video bloggers in late October 2015.

History

Little biographical information is available about the anonymous hacker. The name “Towel” remained rather obscure until early November 2015, when several YouTube channels and Twitter accounts of popular video bloggers, including YourMovieSucks, Exinthevatican (Joel Johansson of Vinesauce) and Lyle McDouchebag, as well as the Tumblr account of Markiplier, were breached and vandalized with the pseudonymous signature.

Exinthevatican Channel Hijack

On November 4th, the hacker claimed responsibility for breaching and hijacking the YouTube and Twitch channels of Joel Johansson, a well-known member of the popular video game streaming channel Vinesauce, replacing his YouTube avatar and channel name with images bearing the signature “Towel.” In addition to vandalizing Johansson’s social media channels, Towel also uploaded three videos in which he taunts the subscribers by stating that he now owns the channel, while banning nearly everyone who commented on the Vinesauce streamer’s Twitch channel.

Shortly after the hack, Johansson’s subscribers began discussing the events on Vinesauce’s official forum, the /r/vinesauce subreddit and 4chan’s /v/ board, with some reportedly attempting to identify and mobilize a raid against the hacker. On the following day, a brief article about the anonymous hacker “Towel” was created on Vinesauce’s Wikia site. On November 8th, Towel uploaded a video titled “Goodbye” to Johansson’s YouTube channel, seemingly suggesting that he would release his control over the channel. However, by the next day, all of Johansson’s videos had been deleted from the channel. As of November 10th, all of the videos that had been removed were restored and a short video of Johansson announcing the recovery of his channel was uploaded.

Lyle McDouchebag’s Twitter Account

On November 7th, Towel claimed responsibility for taking control of popular Machinima filmmaker Lyle McDouchebag’s Twitter account and renaming it to “Towel McDouchebag.” By November 10th, Lyle McDouchebag’s Twitter feed had been restored.

YourMovieSucks’ Twitter Account

On November 7th, Towel took control of YouTube film critic YourMovieSucks’ Twitter account. As of November 10th, the account appears to be restored.

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External References

About

Rikka’s Finger Spin refers to a series of hand-drawn animated GIFs/videos which are tributes to an adorable finger spin by Rikka Takanashi, a main character in a Japanese light novel/anime Love, Chunibyo & Other Delusions. It was a poular subject for fan creations on the Japanese video sharing service Nico Nico Douga (NND) and illustrators community pixiv in 2012-2013.

Origin

Rikka’s finger Spin appears on the opening movie of the 1st season for the TV anime series aired in October to December 2012. This opneing movie itself also became to a popular subject for the op parodies on NND. The finger spin is inserted in the beginning of the climax part of the song. However, its length is just 2 seconds.

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Despite a quite short footage, her adorable finger spin caught a much attention among viewers. On YouTube, this part was used in a video titled “WOOP WOOP”, made and uploaded on October 4th, 2012 by user jgsfgs (shown below, left) and it was the first fandom. It has been watched over 200,000 times during 3 months of the anime’s airing period. And the finger spin reached more recognition, when a NND user 01 made a Fukkireta fad response and uploaded it on October 12th, 2012 (shown below, right). The video was also the trigger for Fukkireta videos featuring this dance and character were also re-drawed. As seen on Opening Parodies, the finger spin is also re-drawed in these.

More than 100 of parody/tribute videos for Rikka’s Finger Spin had been posted to NND during the airing period.^[1] Additionally, dozens of the finger spin illustrations/animated-GIFs are also found on Nico Nico Seiga^[2] and pixiv^[3] as well as deviantART.^[4] On these Japanese online communities, Rikka’s finger Spin fan creations are usually tagged by a Shift-JIS art “（σ回ω・）σ←↖↑↗→↘↓↙←↖↑↗”.

Notable Examples

Illustrations

Search Interest

[Not Available]

External References

Editor’s Note: Registration is needed to browse the original videos listed in this section.

About

“Jeff The Killer” is a popular creepypasta character depicted as a nose-less, grinning, white skinned man with no eyelids and a black ring around his eyes. The character is frequently used as a popular Internet Screamer along with becoming a largely popular creepypasta story. The character is also frequently associated with the phrase “go to sleep”.

Origin

The first known use of the image originates from a post on the Newgrounds forums by the user killerjeff on August 14th, 2008.^[1] In the post, killerjeff claimed that the image was in fact, a picture of himself. The image is commonly believed to be a photoshopped image of Katy Robinson, a girl who was bullied to suicide by 4chan users for her weight in Fall of 2008.^[5]

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Later, on October 3rd, 2008, YouTube user Sesseur uploaded a video presentation of a creepypasta based around the character. The video has since gained over 700,000 views in under 8 years and is the first known use of the creepypasta based on the character.

The creepypasta later spawned a number of derivatives, with over 200 results on Creepypasta Wiki^[7] and over 3,700 on Creepypasta.com.^[8] YouTube user MrCreepyPasta later uploaded a video in which he read the creepypasta (shown below, left). The video has since gained over 4 million views in 4 years. A video of a rap battle between Jeff The Killer and Slender Man was uploaded by YouTube user Keyblade on November 1st, 2014 (shown below, right). The video has since gained over 50 million views.

A popular screamer site known as “anne.jpg” featuring Jeff The Killer accompanied by a gunshot sound was created on September 9th, 2008.^[9] Over the next 8 years, the site was visited over 23 million times. An Urban Dictionary definition for the screamer was later created on July 30th, 2013.^[10]

Various Examples

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About

“Dawn of the Final Day” is an expression that is commonly used in anticipation of a near future event, in a similar vein to the Imminent Ned advice animal series or its snowclone form “Brace yourselves, (X) is coming.” Stemming from an in-game notification that appears throughout the 2000 Nintendo 64 video game The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, the phrase has been also paired with various imagery of Moon from the same game.

Origin

The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was released in Japan for the Nintendo 64 video game console on April 27th, 2000. In the game,^[1] the player has three days before the Moon crashes into the land of Termina, which the player can avoid by resetting time. Every 24 hours, the player receives an in-game notification regarding how much time is left (shown below).

In early 2010, the slide images and the phrase “dawn of the final day” were used to express anticipation for a coming event. On October 8th, 2010, YouTuber McCrackerTheCracker uploaded a video featuring a slide from Majora’s Mask reading “Dawn of / The Final Day / 24 Hours Remain” (shown below).

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On May 18th, 2011, a Yahoo Answers^[6] user submitted the question “Dawn of the First Day 72 hours remain. May 21, 2011, are you ready?”, referencing Harold Camping’s 2011 rapture prediction.

On September 22nd, 2012, Redditor Rowona submitted a post titled “Dawn of the Final Day” to the /r/zelda^[5] subreddit, featuring a painting of the Moon from Majora’s Mask. Prior to being archived, the post received over 1,000 up votes and 25 comments.

On December 18th, 2012, three days prior to the predicted doomsday of December 21st, the single serving site Terrible Fate^[2] was launched with a large image of Majora’s Mask hanging over a countdown timer (shown below). Created by the video game music remixer Theophany, a Bandcamp playlist of a Majora’s Mask tribute album was unveiled on the site after the countdown reached zero.

Notable Examples

Image macros captioned with “dawn of the final day” are often used in anticipation of an imminent event or as a reference to the game Majora’s Mask. Additional examples can be found on the microblogging site Tumblr^[7] under the tag “#dawn of the final day.”

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About

Egoraptor is the online alias of American animator, song artist, and let’s player Arin Hanson,^[1] known for creating the Awesome Series and his co-production of Game Grumps and Starbomb.^[2] His animations, music, and let’s play videos all focus on video games.

Online History

Newgrounds

On February 23rd, 2006, Hanson uploaded a short animated film titled Metal Gear Awesome to Newgrounds,^[3] featuring a parody of the game Metal Gear Solid (shown below). This was the first in what went on to be a famous staple series on Egoraptor’s YouTube channel titled The Awesome Series. Almost directly after having uploaded the Metal Gear Awesome animation, Hanson was approached by MTV to make animated shorts in the same style for them, specifically requesting he not improve the style and keep it shitty.^[20] Other notable series uploaded on his Newgrounds channel include Lemon n’ Bill, Girlchan in Paradise, and Press Start.^[19] Egoraptor has the most fans on Newgrounds at 43k total, and is the 13th highest rated creator on there with an average rating of 4.43/5.^[21] From 2006 to 2012, Hanson uploaded an additional 69 animations to the site.

Youtube

Arin Hanson created his YouTube account Egoraptor on March 11th, 2006.^[4] Eight months later, he uploaded his first video to the channel titled Gunpey Review., featuring Arin Hanson reviewing the video game Gunpey (shown below).^[5] Egoraptor’s popularity on YouTube steadily climbed as he released more episodes in the Awesome Series, the series reaching its peak of popularity on December 8th, 2011 with his most viewed video Awesome Series – PokeAwesome – Just a Pokemon Battle which has 27.4 million views as of April 19th, 2016.^[27] Starbomb also heavily increased Egoraptor’s notoriety since its first music video’s release on December 17th, 2013 titled Luigi’s Ballad ANIMATEDMUSICVIDEO– Starbomb which received 22.7 million views.^[28] The most popular Starbomb video was released on April 8th, 2014 titled BEST Zelda Rap EVER!! ANIMATEDMUSICVIDEO by Joel C – Starbomb and received 27.2 million views.^[29] Many of the videos on his YouTube channel are re-uploads of animations from his Newgrounds account (mainly ones from the Awesome Series) and as a result often feature the Newgrounds banner at the beginning or end of them. As of April 18th, 2016 he has the 617th most subscribed-to channel on Youtube and the 1575th most viewed with 92 uploads to the channel total.^[22] Over the course of ten years, the channel garnered upwards of 364 million views and 2.4 million subscribers.

Social Media Presence

Arin Hanson’s Egoraptor Facebook page has 258k likes^[34] and his Twitter page has 456k followers and has made over 10k tweets as of April 19th, 2016.^[35] His Instagram @egofaptor has 196k followers as of April 19th, 2016.^[36] On January 29th, 2014, Egoraptor did an AMA which received 2400 comments.^[37] His Reddit account has 3k link karma and 79k comment karma.^[38] On July 9th, 2015, the official Sonic the Hedgehog twitter tweeted to @egoraptor a question (shown below).^[39]

Game Grumps

Arin Hanson and Jon Jafari/JonTron co-created the Let’s Play channel Game Grumps.^[9] In its launch in July 2012, the channel quickly developed a fanbase consisting of video game enthusiasts and subscribers to the two hosts’ personal YouTube channels. Between July 2012 and June 2013, Game Grumps released more than 600 videos, accruing more than 197 million views and a million subscribers in less than a year. Egoraptor and JonTron had a good run together, but after about a year Jon left to focus on his own channel and was replaced by the current co-host Leigh Daniel Avidan/Danny Sexbang.^[8]

Starbomb

Arin Hanson collaborated with Ninja Sex Party to create the band Starbomb which produces comedy rock, synthpop and rap music.^[10] Their first and second albums focus exclusively on video games and every song has been fully animated and uploaded to Egoraptor’s channel.^[11] A video of the first album’s songs without the animations was released December 13th, 2014 (shown below, left).^[12] On March 25th, 2014, a rap-along version of the Starbomb song I Choose You To Die was released including the voices of famous youtubers Rocco Botte, Ashly Burch, Keith Apicary, The Angry Video Game Nerd, Markiplier, Dude Huge, The Completionist, ProJared, Steve Kardynal, Chloe Dykstra, and Smooth McGroove (shown below, right).^[23]

Fandom

Arin Hanson has undoubtedly acquired a large fandom given his strong ties to video game fandoms and the 369.4 million total views on his main animation channel Egoraptor; in addition to the views on his co-hosted let’s play channel Game Grumps currently at 2.1 billion total views.^[4][30] He has acquired his own Wikipedia page^[31] as well as several wiki pages about him found on The YouTube Wiki,^[32] Game Grumps Wiki,^[6] and Wikigrounds.^[33]

Fan Art

Fan Remixes

Notable Videos

Notable Series

Awesome Series

The Awesome Series is a comedy series featuring animated parodies of video games. The first episode in this series was also Arin Hanson’s first ever publicly available animation titled Metal Gear Awesome which was first uploaded to Newgrounds.^[3] Uploaded on February 23rd, 2016, the animation was met with strongly positive reception by the Newgrounds community for its hilarity and ridiculous style, causing MTV to take notice and offer Arin Hanson the job of animating shorts of the same quality for their television channel which he accepted.^[20] The series was originally uploaded on Newgrounds and then re-uploaded to YouTube, but now episodes are exclusively uploaded to YouTube.^[19][4]

Sequelitis

Sequelitis is a review series featuring comedic animated critiques of video game sequels. The first episode in this series was titled Sequelitis – Castlevania 1 vs. Castlevania 2 and it along with all episodes of the series was uploaded exclusively on YouTube (shown below, left). Uploaded on March 11th, 2011, the episode was met with strongly positive reception for its intelligent blend of game design analysis and humor. Notably episodes in this series are much longer than typical videos on Egoraptor’s channel, the longest episode being Sequelitis – ZELDA: A Link to the Past vs. Ocarina of Time which was 31m 29s long (shown below, right).

The Tester

Arin Hanson submitted a video (shown below, left) to a contest to become a contestant in Sony’s show The Tester and fans voted him to victory. However, on the first day in the show the judges gave him a tough time, saying they’d leave a spot open on the couch for him to sleep unlike the other contestants whom had beds.^[14] He tried his best but was ultimately voted off by the judges on the third day for questionable reason after having been beneficial to his team (shown below, right).

Fan Outrage

Egoraptor’s fans unanimously agreed the show’s judges voted him off the show for no good reason other than wanting him gone. This outrage led to fans uploading numerous videos to YouTube mocking and criticizing the show’s judgement as well as other online gaming sites conveying similar feelings.^[13][15][17] He was later quoted saying “The Tester can lick my nuts” in an interview on Destructoid.^[16]

Related Memes

Arin Hanson’s Chin

Arin Hanson’s Chin is a meme about Hanson’s chin that grew popular after the release of a video on his channel titled Lightsaber Fightsaber – Episode IV on May 19th, 2012.^[18] His chin has been referenced in a number of image macros.

Personal Life

Arin Hanson was born on January 6th, 1987^[6] and married his wife Suzy Berhow/Mortem3r on October 25th, 2013.^[7] His father is a musician named Lloyd “Pararaptor” Hanson, his mother is Maurette Hanson, and his brother is an aviator named Nate Hanson.^[6] Jon Jafari is a close friend of Arin’s who co-hosted Game Grumps with him during its first year in which they shared many close humorous moments. Leigh Daniel Avidan took over after Jon left and became similarly close friends with Arin as a co-host of Game Grumps.^[26] Arin Hanson is a friend/friendly enemy of Ross Kenry O’ Donovan and regularly conveys as much on the show Game Grumps, most notably while playing levels Ross created in Super Mario Maker and during the five-episode Guild Grumps series.^[24][25]

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About

This Is Fine. refers to a panel from the web comic Gunshow where a dog is slowly engulfed in flames while proclaiming that everything is fine. It is used as a reaction image used by forum posters trying to say calm in stressful situations.

Origin

The comic originally comes from K.C. Green’s Gunshow comic #648, actually titled “The Pills Are Working” or “On Fire”, originally posted January 9th, 2013. ^[1] Green’s drawings have been the basis of several other memes including Staredad, Dickbutt, Mother of God and I’m Okay With This. The comic, depicts a dog in a room that is burning to the ground. The dog reacts calmly, even as he slowly melts from the heat.

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The comic’s first two panels have become popular on sites such as Imgur and Tumblr for being an accurate and useful description of stressful situations.

On September 21st, 2014, user SPIDER_MAN posted these two panels onto /r/Funny^[2]. The post received over 1,400 upvotes and 40 comments. The same post also received 4,300 upvotes and 106 comments on imgur.^[3]

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External References